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These five philosophical essays are designed to constitute a unified whole, in both their critical and their constructive dimensions. Vincent addresses the crisis of meaning, the repetitiousness of technological processes and mechanisms and the declining sense of the real in political life.

The Second Spanish Republic survived unchallenged for a mere five years, its fall plunging Spain into a bitter civil war. The brief political history of the Republic was characterized by the rapid polarization of right and left - a process in which religion played a crucial role. Many of the ordinary faithful came to feel excluded from the new Republic, whilst those who aspired to lead them insisted that to be Catholic was to be anti-republican. Mary Vincent examines this crucial period in Spanish history, focusing on Salamanca, the home province of the leader of the principal confessional party, Jose Maria Gil Robles, and the place where the right mobilized earlier than anywhere else in Spain. The author demonstrates how political choice was eroded under the Second Republic, and reveals how popular religiosity came to be the right's most potent weapon. This original and important new analysis throws new light on the origins of the Spanish Civil War and on the controversies over who bore ultimate responsibility for the conflict.

Spain, 1833-2002 provides a cultural history of Spanish politics from the civil war of 1833 to the Spanish adoption of the Euro in 2002. A tumultuous period dominated for the most part by violent military interventions in the political process, a succession of weak, unstable, but repressive governments, and the ever-present threat of rebellion from below, this era culminated in the victory and repressive dictatorship of General Franco.
Using a wide range of sources, both textual and material, author Mary Vincent focuses on the question of how ordinary people came to identify themselves both as citizens and as Spaniards throughout this period. She argues that a weak state rather than a weak sense of nation was the key to Spain's problematic development, and that this is the key to explaining both the persistence of political violence and the strength of regional nationalism in modern Spain.
However, as Vincent shows, starting in the 1970s, with the modernization of the state and the introduction of democratic politics, all Spaniards--including Catalans and Basques--enthusiastically adopted an additional identity, that of Europeans. While questions over the territorial unity of the Spanish state have still not been wholly resolved, the political choices facing Spaniards today are very similar to those of other western European nations. Spanish singularity appears, at last, to be consigned to the past.

When Mary Vincent married Peter Dally, an Episcopal priest, she expected to raise their family cradled in the security of a normal pastoral ministry somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. However, that all changed in 1980 when the Roman catholic Church announced that it would ordain married Episcopal priests in a program known as the Pastoral Provision. One of the first to apply, Father Peter was ordained a Catholic priest in 1985 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He served congregations there with Mary beside him until 1998 when he retired. Mary describes for the reader the challenges the couple faced in this very dissimilar religious culture, the warmth of the people of Oklahoma, the humor of their unusual situation, and the poignant events that make up their days. She tells how she and Peter coped with his mysterious occasional exclusion as a married priest, and the isolation and loneliness she experienced as the wife of a priest. This true story is an exciting and challenging adventure in living an improbable lifestyle. You're sure to enjoy this heartwarming personal account.